I think Mattia will include this in the README of the next version of AstroArch and the user experience will be even better with some software - configurations which will help greatly.

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>>On the other hand, whether with Astroberry, my own version ArchLinux or AstroArch, I do not use the wired connection, but exclusively Wi-Fi with three telescopes and 2 PCs plus an Android tablet. So after many hours spent outdoors at 1800 m, in humidity and sometimes extreme cold, I never had Wi-Fi problems.

I must have gotten you confused with someone else. Several other users prefer Ethernet.

In my opinion, these recent posts of yours deserve to be enshrined in a document or two under the AstroArch label. Call it "HOWTO use AstroArch with WiFi". "RPi 4 or RPi5 - which is better for AstroArch". I wish I had known this stuff a few months ago. Too often, it is simply assumed that one is or isn't using WiFi. Really, there are separate diagnostic trees to be traversed in the two cases. You seem to have a lot of really interesting knowledge about the minutiae of this setup. Like for example - WHICH USB3 port to plug which piece of equipment. This is something that might never occur to a new user. It certainly never occurred to me.

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I understand, your choice for StellarMate is a good choice. I think there is no competition, but real complementarity. Especially since Astroberry is no longer updated.

On the other hand, whether with Astroberry, my own version ArchLinux or AstroArch, I do not use the wired connection, but exclusively Wi-Fi with three telescopes and 2 PCs plus an Android tablet. So after many hours spent outdoors at 1800 m, in humidity and sometimes extreme cold, I never had Wi-Fi problems.

The problems mainly come from batteries, cables incorrectly connected or mounted in the wrong order, configuration files and often updates. The only real problem with pi Wi-Fi is the range beyond 5m and walls.

In computing and electronics, nothing is easy and perfect. And whether it is StellarMatte or AstroArch, everything is done to simplify use for the greatest number of people. But unfortunately, each user uses a personal configuration. And fortunately, mutual aid and feedback allows everyone to find solutions.

I wish you a great experience with StellarMatte and if you come back to AstroArch I hope to help you again

clear sky

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Thank you for there detailed explanation and answer! Very helpful!!!

I checked the CMakeList and indeed, the AvalonUD is enabled/active.

option(WITH_AVALONUD "Install AvalonUD Drivers" On)

Thanks, Stephane, for your detailed consideration to my issues.

Sadly, though, I have given up on the Pi5 and ordered a Stellarmate Pro. The issues with their app don't concern me, I can use the device as I have been using the Pi, a NoVNC connection via Wifi, with a real WiFi antenna, better physical connection to my rig, offers me better hope of getting a working system going.

Two years ago, I was seduced by this article into thinking this would be easier than it has turned out to be. So many things could go wrong and so many did. We can rename Murphy's Law (if something can go wrong, it will) Cohen's law. Not just power issues in general, but so many of them! Every cable is a potential flaw. And no good way to measure it, though you provide some good clues here.

The other thing that got me thinking about Stellarmate was your mention that all you guys who are working on AstroArch are using an Ethernet, not a WiFi connnection. That is not an option for me, due to my location up the hill from a horse stable, which brings a lot of flies, so screens must be kept closed so ugly cables through the door are not a real possibility. Nor am I willing to rewire my house. So WiFi hasn't been tested as much as I would have hoped. I was the guinea pig. And the results were poor.

I like your suggestion of plugging the USB for the EAF into the camera. That never occurred to me. That I can try if the Stellarmate doesn't work out.

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Try this link to disable powersaving

wiki.archlinux.org/title/Power_management#Network_interfaces

By putting off instead of on

/etc/udev/rules.d/81-wifi-powersave.rules
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", KERNEL=="wl*", RUN+="/usr/bin/iw dev $name set power_save off"

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Your problems seem to be with how you have wired your devices. There are a few considerations to take into account with a raspberry and especially the 5.

Without USB-PD and 5A or 3A, the total power available on the Pi 5's four USB ports is limited to 600mA. This limitation on the Pi 5 will prevent the proper connections of your devices. Note the Pi 4 does not have this limitation and its maximum amperage is 1.2A.

With the addition of usb_max_current_enable=1, you find the 1.6A max of the pi5.

But depending on your installation, you risk losing the connection due to lack of amperage or poor detection of the type of USB used.

You are using a 533, use the two USB ports of your cooled camera to connect your eaf style devices, guide camera or others.

This way, the camera power supply will provide the necessary amperage to the peripherals and relieve the PI.

If you launch AstroArch from an SSD, you must use the first USB 3 port at the top. The cooled camera goes to the bottom USB 3 port.
Connect your mount to one USB 2 port and the GPS to the other.

If you use more USB 2 devices. Connect them to a powered hub with sufficient amperage.

Use this command in a terminal to determine the maximum amperage of your devices on the USB ports of the pi5: sudo lsusb -v | grep -E "^Bus|MaxPower"

It would be interesting if you could give us the list of your equipment, the cables and how you connect them. Because in your previous descriptions, sometimes we see a USB cable, sometimes an eqmod style cable Prolific Technology Inc.

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The operation of a GPS on AstroArch is the same as with Astroberry. The device must be recognized by the pi with the configuration of the config.txt file then it is managed by the gpsd service.

You must add these two lines to the /boot/config.txt file. Then restart the pi

device_tree_param=spi=on
activate_uart=1

You should find your GPS in the /dev directory which should look like ttyAMA0

Afterward, either the GPS is recognized directly with the default GPSD file, or this file must be modified to hardcode the location of the dev point.

In /etc/default/gpsd modify the DEVICES line with the dev point of your ttyAMAx GPS

DEVICES="/dev/ttyAMA0"

If you have your Astroberry files, look at how they are set up

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Perhaps this video and this link will help you understand and configure your devices in the Ekos optical train

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltOFxH_fKnQ&ab_channel=StellarMate

www.stellarmate.com/support/ekos/setup.html

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I rearranged manually... but some panels would eventually go behind a larger panel.
So, I followed Hy's advise and prefixed files.
With focal lengths. Like: 050, 135, 280, 400...
This worked perfectly!

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Hello Abdi,

I had the same question and just came across your post. May I ask if you ever got this working and if so how? This is the procedure I tried:

- Check "Non-Guide Dither Pulse" in the Ekos Guide Module options dialog and set the time as required
- Set "AstroTrac" in the "Guide via" box of the Optical Trains settings dialog, which should send the dither pulse commands directly to the mount. (The optical train settings dialog can be opened by clicking on the pencil icon to the right of the optical train that's currently selected in the Guide module).

That's where I ran into problems. The dither pulses are sent to the AstroTrac INDI driver correctly but they have no effect because the guide rate for the mount is initialized to zero and this value can't be changed in the INDI control panel. This might be a bug or perhaps I have just misunderstood how to enable this feature.

In any case, I made some local code changes to the AstroTrac driver and was able to get non-guided dithering to work with my mount. I have submitted a pull request to have this behavior reviewed but perhaps code changes aren't really necessary if you already found a better way.

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pyindi-client should compile against 2.0.0 to 2.0.3 from the following git checkout:

pip3 install "git+https://github.com/indilib/pyindi-client.git@674706f#egg=pyindi-client"

I track the compatibility of pyindi-client pretty closely for indi-allsky.

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Wow, okay, optical trains. So many additional steps just to get up and running. Sorry...

A bit curious - I have an ASI120MM that I want to use for experimenting as a primary camera, and I have an Orion SSAG as a guide camera. I just connected the SSAG and things seem happy, but surprisingly, there is no mention of the SSAG in the guide module. More worrying is the scope info in the guide module is for the primary scope, NOT the guide scope. To add to this, I see a message guider port on ASI120MM Mini is now ready.

So, do I have to create yet another optical train/equipment profile JUST for the guide scope and then select that in the guide module?

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I was today years old when I learned that KStars allows you to customize the toolbars. This may have something to do with the issue on hand. Are the people who have issues with the "Views" option showing up people who have customized their toolbars before the 3.7.0 drop?

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Okay, some really bizarre ideas:

1. The new KStars is picking up the wrong .xml file for the UI from some other folder

2. There is some user-customizability in the menus (I see none of your menus match!), that causes a modified .xml file to be stored somewhere in the user's setting list. This is not overwritten / the new menu items are not added to this when a new version of KStars drops. (Possible, although I don't know of any menu customization in KStars; that being said even some of us developers hardly know 20% of the features)

3. It has something to do with the theme: dark mode vs. light mode. (Very unlikely)

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The exact same .dmg has worked for other people. This may be some deep MacOS issue that I don't have insight into. Does the same thing happen if you move the KStars.app to the Applications folder and run, instead of out of the .dmg? At least in the build process, the menus are stored in a separate .xml file. I wonder if that .xml file got substituted for an older one.

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Just got my brand-new Stellarmate. I'd heard the UI was bad but that doesn't even begin to describe the user interface on an IPhone. I've heard it's better on a tablet, but on an IPhone it's absolutely unusable. This just in the first five minutes:

1) app doesn't rotate when you rotate the phone.
2) input screens on the app don't allow cut and paste, or at least not any way I can see.

But I'm told I must use the app to register. I generated me a nice long secure password in my pw manager but I can't paste the thing into the screen? Must I really write the password on paper and then type it into the (tiny) entry field?

Or is there a way I can register the thing on my Linux computer?

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I'm coming from Astroberry on Raspberry Pi4 and use UART GPS.

I have a Pi4 on the bench with AstroArch installed and am wondering if it supports GPS UART mode and, if so, how do I tell AstroArch about it?

Thanks!

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